altmetrics and the changing societal needs of research communications at r&d centres in an...
TRANSCRIPT
Anup Kumar DasJawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
http://anupkumardas.blogspot.in
Altmetrics and the Changing Societal Needs of Research Communications at R&D Centres in an Emerging Country: A
Case Study of India
2AM: 2nd Altmetrics Conference Session: Altmetrics as Indicators of Economic and Social Impact
Presented on 7th October 2015, at Amsterdam
Challenges• Altmetrics Score or Citation Count are not given priority in impact
measurement or research evaluation in most of the Indian universities/ research institutions.
• Research Funders in India don’t have appropriate strategy for considering Altmetrics Score in impact measurement or research evaluation or funding decision.
• University Grants Commission (UGC), apex body in University System in India, introduced Academic Performance Indicators (APIs) in 2010 for career advancement/ promotion.
• However, APIs do not seek an Altmetrics Score or a Citation Count for a published work.
• This demoralizes researchers/ faculty members having high Altmetrics Score or a Citation Counts.
• Few Indian Journals have taken appropriate initiative to derive Altmetric score from the journal website.
Exemplary Initiative for Improving Altmetric Score• Only few research departments or centres in Indian universities have
social media presence. • Few of them maintain an active email-based discussion forum or
listserv for promoting scholarship and academic networking. • CSSP (Centre for Studies in Science Policy @Jawaharlal Nehru
University) has taken exemplary initiative to promote published works emanated from the Centre.
• CSSP gets article alerts from the Google Scholar Alerts. • Then CSSP shares information on every published work to social media
channels, including:– Twitter– Facebook– Google+– Email-based Discussion Forum– Research Blog– CSSP Website– Posts to Subject-Specific Multiple FB Groups and Listservs
Exemplary Initiative for Improving Altmetric Score
• CSSP’s Research Students also get training on how to create and maintain their academic profiles on– Academia.edu– ResearchGate.net– Linkedin.com – Google Scholar profile– Personal Blogs– Slideshare.net– Orcid.org
• Many of the Research Students maintain their academic profiles on these sites.
• Their academic profiles include List of Published Papers, Bibliographic Details and Hyperlinks to Full-text Contents.
Outreaching to Global Audience: Research Bloghttp://cssp-jnu.blogspot.in
Outreaching to Global Audience: Twitter@IndiaSTS
Outreaching to Global Audience: Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/csspjnu
Outreaching to Global Audience: Audio Archivehttp://www.mixcloud.com/cssp_jnu/
Open Access Repositories in Indian Universities
Total No. of Universities in the Country as on 03.09.2015 (University Grants Commission): 733Universities Total No.State Universities 336Deemed to be Universities 127Central Universities 46Private Universities 224• Institutional Repositories of Indian Universities• 70 OA Repositories from India are recorded in OpenDOAR
– About 40+ Repositories from Indian Universities – About 5.5% Indian Universities Have OA Repositories
Notable OA Initiatives
• Shodhganga [Indian ETD Repository @ INFLIBNET]• A Repository for Theses and Dissertations from Indian Universities
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in • 44441 theses and dissertations uploaded as on 05-10-2015• Top 5 Contributing Universities
– Jawaharlal Nehru University [4450+]– Gujarat University [2924+]– Anna University [2836+]– Mahatma Gandhi University [2080+]– Bundelkhand University [1690+]
• Shodhgangotri [Research in Progress @ INFLIBNET] • A Repository for Doctoral Research in Progress from Indian
Universities http://shodhgangotri.inflibnet.ac.in
Shodhganga [Indian ETD Repository @ INFLIBNET]
Open Access Harvestor and Central Platform
IR@DST http://dst.sciencecentral.in
• Open Access Institutional Repository from Department of Science and Technology (DST). [Non-Functional as on 05-10-15]
IR@DBT http://dbt.sciencecentral.in
• Open Access Institutional Repository from Department of Biotechnology (DBT). [Non-Functional as on 05-10-15]
Information and Media Literacy Toolkit for Altmetrics
• UNESCO Open Access Curricula for ResearchersModule 4: Research Evaluation Metrics – UNIT 1: Introduction to
Research Evaluation Metrics and Related Indicators
– UNIT 2: Innovations in Measuring Science and Scholarship
– UNIT 3: Article and Author Level Measurements
– UNIT 4: Online Citation and Reference Management Tools
Conclusion
• Lack of research communications strategies in Indian universities. • Published literatures remain unnoticed due to non-availability of
dedicated and specialised research communicators in academic departments.
• Academic staff members such as Documentation Officers, Research Officers and Information Scientists can be engaged as departmental Research Communicators and Communications Strategists for promoting published research to worldwide research communities.
• Exemplary initiatives can be up-scaled and implemented across the universities and research institutions in India.
• Apex bodies, such as UGC, DST, DBT and CSIR, need to be proactive in promoting Altmetric and other modern impact measurement methods.
References• Das, Anup Kumar (2015). Research Evaluation Metrics [Open Access for
Researchers, 4]. Paris: UNESCO, ISBN: 9789231000829.• Das, Anup Kumar & Mishra, Sanjaya (2014). Genesis of Altmetrics
or Article-level Metrics for Measuring Efficacy of Scholarly Communications: Current Perspectives. Journal of Scientometric Research, 3(2): 82-92.
• Das, D. N., & Chattopadhyay, S. (2014). Academic Performance Indicators: Straitjacketing Higher Education. Economic & Political Weekly, 49(50), 68-71.
• Sujatha, V. (2015). The Academic Performance Indicators Regime and Its Follies. Economic & Political Weekly, 50(5), 23-25.
• UGC (2010). Proposed Scores for Academic Performance Indicators (APIs) in Recruitments and Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) Promotions of University / College Teachers.
